As a Mind & Media Reviewer, I was not compensated for providing this review. I received a complimentary copy of the book in order to review it.

You can purchase it by clicking here:

Levi’s Will is an engaging tale of pain, love and forgiveness that spans three generations. W. Dale Cramer artfully weaves together the cultures of the Amish and the “English” in a story that will draw you in and make you wish it were longer.

Will Mullet, a 19 year old Amish boy, flees home as he is about to be banned from the order. He enlists in the military, meets and marries his wife, and completely hides his Amish past. Eventually, however, the past finds him, and he is confronted with returning to visit his family and face his father, who has never ceased to judge, and never been willing to forgive.

I found the descriptive nature of the story is not unlike John Grisham’s style, in that the details are clear and vivid, they paint a very specific picture in the mind of the reader, yet they are not filled with superflous information that gets skimmed by the reader as an author more like Tom Clancy tends to be. The narrative jumps back and forth between the past and the present, and attempts to clarify this by shifting the writing from first person (present) to second person (when referring to the past), and I found this person shifting a bit distracting.

Overall, this was a top notch novel. The details of the Amish culture were fascinating, many of which I had never heard before. Character development was excellent, and Cramer did a superb job of holding the reader’s attention and causing the reader to empathize with the main actors in the story.

After reading this, my first exposure to Mr. Cramer, I will seek out more of his work, and I highly recommend that you do the same!